#poverty pimp

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Maxine Waters Impeaches Nanny, Hairstylist, Gardener All In Same Week

Maxine Waters Impeaches Nanny, Hairstylist, Gardener All In Same Week

CALIFORNIA – Congresswoman Maxine Waters (Deranged-CA) has a one track mind that only leads to impeachment. She’s consumed by it. So much so that just in the last week, she’s impeached her own nanny, hairstylist, and gardener. The workers were caught off guard by the move.

“She just walks around muttering ‘Impeach 45,’ ‘Must impeach!’ or ‘I’ll impeach all you bastards!’ whenever she’s here at the…

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WOKE? Maxine Waters plays to empty seats as only 10 millennials show up to campaign event

WOKE? Maxine Waters plays to empty seats as only 10 millennials show up to campaign event

Wake up, California, it is time for Maxine Waters to go.

Waters hasn’t had a platform to run on for decades and her “EMPEACH FO-TEE FIVE” rhetoric is obviously not cutting it judging from the 10 millennials who showed up to her tweet-a-thon.

#VoteMaxineWaters on June 5th #reclaimingmytime #auntiemaxine pic.twitter.com/0yZtnPX1YJ

— Maxine Waters (@MaxineWaters) June 3, 2018

The American Mirrorby…

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Street newspapers and cautionary tales on how to promote entrepreneurship among the extreme poor

In the 1990s, I began seeing people who stand in front of supermarkets selling “homeless newspapers.” The way it worked was that a small, flimsy tabloid-sized newspaper was sold for a dollar (this was when a copy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was 35 cents) and each “vendor” was able to keep 75 cents of that dollar to themselves, minus the 25 cents for the actual cost of publishing that newspaper.

Street newspapers since then have spread internationally. Many of them are now of exceptional quality, whereas in the past, those papers had a feel of an amateurish zine put together by the homeless. The Big Issue is the largest multinational franchise of such papers (actually, magazines), whereas independent publications such as Portland’s Street Roots and Seattle’s Real Change have received many acclaims for their journalistic excellence.

The public pitch for these street newspapers is that they help those who are experiencing homelessness by empowering them to generate income through flexible and independent means.

The reality, however, is nothing more than the optic — the manufactured illusion that these “vendors” are somehow different from panhandlers because they are selling something, they are working. Those same people who tell people not to give money to panhandlers somehow do not seem to have any problem with these street newspaper vendors taking in more cash than the run-of-the-mill panhandlers even though the street papers do not usually monitor or keep track of their earnings. The only indicators in estimating income are how many copies of the newspapers were sold wholesale to the vendors.

Years ago, I wrote news articles for one of such street newspapers and around the same time I attended a vendor orientation out of curiosity. The orientation did very little by way of training people to become a salesperson. Attendees were given 10 free copies of the latest issue, which they were expected to sell on a street corner of their choice (provided that it is not anyone else’s turf and is at least five blocks away from anyone’s turf) and were told that the paper was well-regarded in the community with dedicated readership and thus was an “easy sell.”

In my conversations with some of the better-performing vendors, I found out that the majority of their income came from “tips,” not from newspaper sales. What was actually going on was that those who were great at panhandling were just using the newspaper as a glorified form of a cardboard sign, and passers-by were “buying” a copy for $5, $10, or even more. They often have a high-traffic spot in an upscale shopping area, with their turfs being dictated by seniority.

Yet, for every one of these “successful vendors” there were many more attritions and those who gambled their money on buying more and more copies of newspaper with false hope of making it this week, only to see that hope quickly turning into a disappointment. Some of these people buy papers like they were lottery tickets. And the non-profits who publish the papers never refund unsold copies.

Very quickly I realized that street papers weren’t teaching their vendors to gain any tradable skills such as money management, entrepreneurship, or even salesmanship; rather, they were being a front for panhandlers, to make panhandling more socially acceptable.

An orientation that consists of little more than making them watch a 15-minute video and then sending them their way with 10 free papers is not helping those who are new to the street let alone with any experience with begging in public. And if these non-profits were really serious about creating income opportunities, they would be shutting down their newsroom and instead contract with the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times to sell their publications — even if the per-copy margin may be smaller to the vendors, they are highly respected and high-demand newspapers that appeal to a much larger audience (with a much higher average income bracket). This could go a long way especially if the vendors are required to wear a professional-looking uniform and are trained extensively to project the brands of these newspapers.

In technicality, these non-profits classify the vendors as independent business owners who contract to distribute their publications. Yet, their actual income potentials are limited (aside from so-called “tips” they receive) as you can only sell so many papers every week and each copy only yields 50 to 75 cents (depending on which city they are in). Many street newspapers, distrustful of their vendors (or more often, because of the pressures from local government officials), also prohibit the vendors from anything else while vending.

The success of street newspapers come with a cautionary tale. Even though a small number of vendors even take in enough money each week to rent a small single resident occupancy (SRO) room and then some, the majority of them remain trapped in extreme poverty with no path to advancement.

Promoting a development of microenterprise among those who experience extreme poverty requires a comprehensive social support. Not only that there must be an adequate infrastructure and access to micro-capital, but also a community of mutual support, ongoing professional development, and accountability.

Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank “the bank for the poor,” instituted a five-person support group for those who receive the bank’s micro-credit. And Grameen not only finances individuals but sees its banking activities as an integral part of the social and economic development of the entire village. This type of community-based and peer-driven support system is something that often lacks in street newspapers, in which vendors are largely left alone and expected to fend for themselves from day one without any meaningful training.

(Originally published on Aug. 23, 2017.)

Photo credit: Joe Frazier via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Public License 2.0 BY, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56434543

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Posters Pop Up Across LA Outing Maxine Waters as a “Poverty Pimp”

Posters Pop Up Across LA Outing Maxine Waters as a “Poverty Pimp”

  Pursuant to an article by Charles C. Johnson of Got News, an independent anonymous art collective has put Progressive elitist, Maxine Waters on blast by displaying posters labeling Waters a “Poverty Pimp” throughout Los Angeles and in front of her mansion.

Maxine Waters is a ‘Poverty Pimp’ with dollar signs in her eyes, say street artists based in Los Angeles.

‘Niggas better have my money!’…

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breakdown the non-profit industrial complex at every level.